WIP: Stay (T+) - Draco/Hermione
Notes: As promised, here is the first part of the revision of Stay. Expect major plot differences from the original, which is no longer accessible.
Date: 13 July 2007
Author: vexia
Pairing(s): Draco/Hermione
Summary: You can't help the dead.
MONDAY, 18:07
She squints, batting at the sun sparkles that blink in her peripheral, tries to catch them with a pinch of her fingers. They rest in her palms, flickering honeysuckle yellow and a pale orange. The rooftop is scorching hot beneath her back and bare legs, bare arms; she's burning bright, absorbing the heat into her winter limbs and autumn flyaway hair.
The charms resting in the space between the base of her neck and collarbones burn imprints of silver and blue, remaining pieces of loved ones in a world best forgotten.
Here, they said to her, exchanging parting gifts and foolishly promising her their swift return. They said, Have a charm or two and don't lose them. One of them awkwardly embraced her, and the other squeezed her hand that she thought her bones might crack. And the rest of her life were a sequence of unimportant events that really did matter, but she tried her hardest not to care. It was composed of waiting, waiting, a letter or two, waiting, waiting, a letter, waiting and waiting and nothing at all.
A breeze brushes her cheek, and she opens her eyes.
She turns over on her stomach, crawls to all fours, and sluggishly stands on her feet. She sways lightly before catching herself, padding barefoot to the skylight, slid open just a scant to accommodate her willow-light frame. She climbs down the ladder, shuts the window, and finds her way back to bed.
Her captor, saviour, any word of choice under these circumstances, is on his side. And he barely moves, the bed shifting beneath her weight as she buries herself underneath the sheets, pretending to disappear. Shadows play on the floor, and she thinks about the fires and its chases and killings.
And there's a hand that barely touches the small of her back, warmth that emanates and electrifies between skins, callused fingertips that tickles and trembles and traces old scars, lulling her to dreamless sleep.